


Brothers in Arms

by Tangerine



Category: The Authority
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-05-08
Updated: 2000-05-08
Packaged: 2018-05-26 07:07:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine/pseuds/Tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Men on the run.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers in Arms

It started to rain soon after we started running, the darkness and the thick downpour of water giving us proper cover from our hunters. Despite his protests, I gave Apollo my jacket to hide the blinding white of his costume. Everything about him seemed to glow, but it never crossed my mind to ditch him, to leave the man behind and save myself.

Never even thought about it.

"In here," I said lowly, losing my words on the wind and pushing him through a break in the wall of the abandoned factory. He was a big man, I noticed, taller than me with broad shoulders and large hands. And a smiling face, I noticed that the moment I met him, always smiling.

He wasn't smiling now.

"Get some sleep," I said gruffly, "I'll keep watch."

Apollo sat down in the nearest corner, drawing his knees to his chest and laying his head on them, staring blankly into a dark section of the barren room. I turned my back to him and started a fire for warmth, using whatever scraps of wood and paper I could grab as fuel. I was soaked to the bone, and the sun was quickly setting. It would be cold tonight.

"Hey, give me your clothes."

Known for being witty when he wanted to be, the comment got nothing more than a half-hearted toss of wet clothing, but what was I expecting? Six hours ago he -- we -- saw our team get shot down, ripped to the ground in a flood of blood and guts. It didn't really affect me. Death, when you see it dissected from millions of different angles, doesn't seem so horrible, but Apollo was a suffering man, I could see that plain as day.

His head was tilted, his face partly cloaked by the shadows, and brushes of white hair lay wet and clingy against his forehead, but he wasn't asleep, wasn't even attempting it. Those blue eyes were wide open and looking at me, sad things.

"What are we going to do?"

I looked at him and took only mild note of the ‘we' in that question. "Run and keep running until Bendix is dead and we're safe." I bowed my head for a moment, drips of water racing from the crown of my mask and onto my lips. "Not much else we can do."

The eyes shifted from my face to the ground then up to the broken windows, blinking slowly as if he could not see. I kept adding wood to the fire, burning anything dry that I could find until the heat was sufficient. I sat back on my ankles, rubbing my chin with a gloved hand before pulling them off and tossing them beside Apollo's costume to dry. Quick as I could, I shrugged out of my uniform and laid it out. Apollo watched every move I made and part of me wanted to cover up my scarred body, but it was nothing he hadn't seen before.

I met Apollo the first day I was aware of myself enough to realise I wasn't dreaming. I had been in pain for weeks, months, years maybe, lying there helpless as they changed me into this living computer, able to see death and violence through windows no one but I knew existed. When they were done and I was put in with the others, I was still convinced nothing was real.

He was friendly, almost too friendly, and he was chatty, never bloody shutting up for even a second, but I remembered everything he said to me. Every single word was burned into my brain, repeating over and over again. I thought I would hate him.

I thought wrong.

"Listen," I said slowly, "what happened today, don't let it get to you."

"But there was so much blood," he murmured, burying his face between his knees as his arms tightened around his legs, "and they were my ... friends. They were murdered because we were too fool to see ..."

"We saw what we were told to see, that's it," I interrupted roughly, not willing to let him go there, not willing to lose him to despair. "You can either keep thinking about it and drive yourself insane or you accept it for what it was, a tragedy, and you move on. You can't do both, Apollo."

Apollo didn't answer me for a long time.

"I wish you knew my real name," he finally muttered, a strange sound escaping his lips, either a really quiet sob or a highly rueful laugh, "so you could call me by it. Apollo, it might be what I am, but I'm sure there was a man before that, something more than what I am now."

I looked up at him, watching how those light eyes met my dark ones, day meeting night, sun greeting moon. This strange interplay between us, these words that he said and I only thought, they'd been there from the beginning. I didn't know what to make of it. I had no past experiences with which to compare these feelings. I just knew there was something between us that hadn't been there between the others.

Funny. Sitting there, I found myself wondering if I had been gay before Bendix got a hold of me.

Even more funny. I didn't care if I had been or not. I just knew that now, after the fact and after I had been completely erased, I was certainly swinging in that direction. I wasn't good at this relating crap, I preferred to think instead of talk, but I'll be damned if I wasn't willing to change all of that for him.

Now, if only I wasn't so fucking ...

... afraid ...

"I wish I knew your real name, too," I muttered simply, brushing my hand over my short, buzzed hair. Doing that, I got that sense that it used to be longer, but that was then and this was now. I didn't have a past, so I had to sever myself from wanting one.

"Midnighter?"

"Yes?"

"Nothing."

Christ. He was one of *those*, I knew the type without knowing why I knew. The ones who never said what they really thought, only expected you to figure it out from one word answers. Jesus. Coming from normal folks, it was annoying.

But Apollo wasn't normal.

"Listen, if you have something on your mind, you speak it," I said roughly. "You and me, it looks like we might be together for a damned long time and I don't want you jumping around your own thoughts. You want to say something, say it."

"Thank you," he said abruptly, "for saving my life back there. I ... froze. Some team leader I am, my team gets slaughtered and all I can do is sit there and watch it happen and turn to babbling fool."

"I thought I told you to stop thinking about it."

"What? You suddenly a telepath?" His tone was snide, formed in a way I would say it, but it was my nature. It wasn't his. I was angry enough without his rage pressing down on my back. He couldn't bear that sort of hate. I wouldn't let him.

When someone shines as brightly as he does, you don't let that light go out.

"Jesus Christ, Apollo, there's not a damned thing you could have done! Not a single damned thing! And I won't let you tear yourself apart because you were helpless. You got that? I am not going to let you do that to yourself."

Apollo's eyes lifted and he focussed that intense gaze on me, but I didn't back down, didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't do a single thing he expected me to do. He had power within him that could turn me to embers, but it wasn't his way. He was the type to fight for justice; I was the type to fight for vengeance.

"Why?"

I looked at him sharply and blinked. "What?"

"Why won't you let me do that to myself?"

Of all the fucking things to ask ... "No reason."

"Now who's yanking who around by the balls?"

"Pardon me?"

Apollo grinned. "You heard me."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I spit, not liking how he had suddenly gotten in control of this conversation and intensely defensive because of it. I wouldn't give him the truth, couldn't, didn't dare. "I don't need a fucking reason."

"You only swear when you want the subject to be changed. A man of so few words and you spend a hell of a lot of time cussing." Apollo relaxed the grip on his legs, leaning forward so the muscles of his body caught the glint of the fire. "Want to fuck me?"

"You wish," I muttered, turning my face away and into the heart of the fire. "Now shut the fuck up."

That seemed to quiet him, and he leaned back against the wall, his heels braced against the concrete floor as he tapped his fingers on his knees. The man was tense, I could see the muscles twitching in his neck, and I was on edge just watching him, knowing that if he vented, he'd be venting on my sorry ass.

"You have to calm down," I said quietly, wondering if he even heard me, but those tapping fingers stopped halfway down to his leg and stayed there suspended in midair. "Focus on something else. Focus on me if you have to."

Shit. I knew the moment it left my mouth it was the wrong fucking thing to say. Well, wrong in most ways, save for one, and I was damned sure I wasn't offering that. Besides, he wasn't going to take it that way. He'd beat me senseless if he figured out I was fucking queer.

"Midnighter?"

"*What?*"

Apollo frowned and shook his head, dismissing the thought. It was just as well. If he said fucking *nothing* again, on principle I was going to have to get violent. I refused to meet his eyes, probably would avoid him to the day I fucking died because he was making me uncomfortable, and the Midnighter didn't get uncomfortable.

Ever.

As the night deepened and even the stars seemed to disappear, I got up to revive the fire, tossing paper and old wood onto the embers in an attempt for warmth. It had to be close to two in the morning, the streets below dead save for the occasional shout of some hoodlum trying to stir up trouble. I found myself staring at the empty world.

"Are you cold?"

Absently, I shook my head. "No."

"But you're shivering."

"No," I replied quietly, "I'm not."

Apollo sighed deeply and looked at me, and I mean, *really* looked. I could feel his eyes on my back, staring like I was the only thing in the world at which to stare. I dipped my head slightly, my line of sight focussed on the floor and not on him, but I could see his legs, the line of skin above his ankles but below his knees that indented slightly into bone.

"I naturally give off heat," Apollo mumbled, his toes curling against the stained concrete. "If you want to sit nearer to me, I mean, as close as you're comfortable, I'm sure you'd be warmer. And you are shivering."

The man had a point, and he was right, it was bloody cold and I was fucking *shivering* despite my best attempts to ignore the sudden drop in temperature. Gazing into the centre of the fire, where the colour faded into a soft blue, I sat next to him, two feet over, and grunted a thank you.

At three, it started to rain again, thunder, lightning, the whole fucking deal. Apollo was staring again, focussing on things even I couldn't see. He jumped with every boom the sky gave him, his grip on his knees becoming so tight I worried he'd break his own legs. He was losing it and fast, but what more could I do? Comfort him? Hold him and tell him everything would be all right?

We'd both see through that lie clear as day. We were hunted men, him and I, and we owed our existence to Bendix. I didn't like being an owned man; I never asked for Bendix to do this to me. But I got the sense life never had been very kind to me.

Just look at me, for fuck's sake.

Without a word, Apollo stood up and walked to the window, wholly unashamed to be so wantonly naked as he reached out an arm, his palm upturned to catch the falling rain. Another cry of thunder, and he immediately wrapped his arms around his body, pain etched on his face.

And me, I couldn't do anything but watch with an emotionless face.

The next day, Apollo slept. A huge, lumbering man and he had somehow wrapped himself into a tight ball of limbs, lying on his side, noiseless and *tiny.* How a man that fucking enormous had managed to fall asleep like that kept me puzzled for hours, and I watched him like he was the only thing in the world left to see.

Maybe he was.

But maybe he wasn't.

I dressed myself when I realised my clothes were dry, pulling on everything but the mask and the coat. Part of me wanted to keep the gloves off too, but I couldn't stand to look at my hands, to see the tiny scars and remember why they were there. My face, hell, I hadn't seen a mirror since this mess started, so I didn't know if it was the worse thing imaginable. I could only assume it had to be like looking at a football, badly-stitched and fucking *disturbing*.

As day drifted back into night, I relaxed and took off the gloves, stretching my fingers. Apollo still slept soundlessly beside me, my coat laying over him where I had tossed it hours before to give him some semblance of privacy. Peaceful, I realised, he looked peaceful lying there, his chest rising and falling with every gentle breath, his pale blond hair cast over his closed eyes, his lips neither smiling nor frowning, just pressed together in a straight line.

I almost allowed myself to think the word beautiful ...

Beautiful. *Fuck*. I wasn't allowed to think that way, not now, not when the man had just witnessed his team - fuck, *our* team - get slaughtered. Maybe later, I thought mildly, maybe someday in the far future I'd grab the idiot and let him work out my feelings for him.

"Midnighter?"

"You're awake," I said, no mutter of greeting, no grunt of response, just a fucking startled string of words.

Apollo didn't seem to notice, just sat up and ran his hand through his hair. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Doesn't matter. You needed it."

Apollo raised an eyebrow and pushed up with his arms, reclining until he sat next to me, seeing what I did or thinking our eyes were same. Where he saw a spider making a web in the corner, I saw the spider making a million webs in a million different patterns with a million different beginnings, middles and ends.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Christ, Apollo, have I not already made that clear?"

Apollo blinked at me then shook off the harsh tone, ignoring me when anyone else would have told me to fuck off then would have fucked off himself. "Just so we have some understanding, because I'm not sure we do," he paused and pulled at his hair, nervous, "I'm gay, too."

"Well, good for you."

Apollo rasped a harsh breath and I got the sense *that* might have made him angry. Or irritated, I tried not to look at him, but he certainly gave the air of being incredibly irritated. "Midnighter, let's speak on equal terms here and be honest for a moment."

I wanted to tell him there was no such thing, but I didn't. There were never any words.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"How that fuck can I not? All you fucking do is talk, so go on, say whatever it is you think I don't understand." When I understand everything, you asshole, I just can't do this right now with you sitting there and me sitting here. It's not *right*.

"You know what? *No.*" Apollo pushed to a stand, shaking he was so furious, furious at *me*. "So just fuck off and leave me the hell alone!"

And that's the last I saw of him for three days, flying out the window without a strip of clothing on and his costume twisted in his fist. His absence didn't hurt until the next day, when the sun was shining and bright and everything I wasn't.

So what? I was a broken man. I had nothing in me to give because I had nothing in me at all. Apollo wanted compassion from me, understanding, friendship, but how the hell was I suppose to give him any of that when I was so fucking empty?

I was a shell of a man, of a fucking monster, ugly on the outside and the inside.

Fuck.

I sat there in the same spot for three days, just staring at the wall and doing my damnedest to attempt mindlessness. I just wanted to stop thinking for one hour, one minute, one second, but I just couldn't. It was constant. It was going to drive me fucking insane one day. I just needed a moment of *peace*.

Instead, all I could do was replay the fact that because I was an asshole, I was fucking alone. There were a thousand other things I could have done, words I could have said, but I didn't. All I could do was attack him when he was down, force him to stay back despite the fact I wanted nothing more than to have him close.

Fuck, it was so cold without him.

But I couldn't be dependent on anyone, not even him. People, they let me down. I put too much faith into them despite my nature, and they could never carry that weight. Never. I trusted Bendix to give me a better life; I trusted the team not to get themselves fucking slaughtered ...

... I trusted Apollo not to leave me ...

See what I say about trust? It's too easily broken.

The third night it started to rain. A vicious downpour that knocked out the streetlights and sent drips of icy water spiralling from the leaky roof, nearly extinguishing my fire. Would I even get sick if I spent the night cold and wet? Probably not.

I couldn't even do that right.

I closed my eyes and laid my head back, thinking that if I could only sleep then maybe my brain would stop driving me insane, but without outer peace, it was so hard to find an inner one. My body was tense; angry and twisting muscles seemed to rage against me. I deserved it, I knew, and I clutched my fingers together, scrapping blunt nails against a flawless palm.

The only part they fucking left intact was the palm of my hand.

My body tensed further when I realised I wasn't the only one in the barren, empty room anymore, and my eyes flew open, ready to kill whoever it was ... but it only Apollo, soaked to the bone and with a deeply haunted look on his face, but it was him.

Apollo had come back.

He moved slowly as he pulled the costume from his body, not looking at me, not looking at anything but the dim glow of the dying fire. Sitting down next to the embers, he put more wood into it, fingers directly in the heat. A part of me forgot who he was and wanted to stop him, but he was invulnerable to flame, and he kept his hand there for the longest time, collecting the warmth as he shook.

Apollo was shivering.

Did he even realise I was there? But when I moved, moved toward him, he did look up. He had to know I was, but his eyes were so empty, so completely sad that I wasn't sure if it was Apollo at all ...

... or just an empty shell of a man.

I drew nearer, crouching low to the concrete as I looked at his face. He was crying silent tears, streaking that perfect skin with tracks of glowing water. It was so difficult to notice from the rain, but I could and I did. Why was this so much harder for him than for me?

It came to the point where I was kneeling before him in penance, hands clutched in my lap as I regarded him quietly. He still didn't look at me, his eyes were focussed elsewhere, at places in his soul I was too afraid to see, but his breathing changed, so I knew he was aware of my presence.

My fingers cut through the air soundlessly, moving so slowly it was like a dream before they touched upon his face, pressing over his wet cheekbone and brushing the tears away from his skin. I couldn't let that light go out, not when I had something in me that could keep it burning forever.

Thunder cracked the sky as I pressed my lips to the other half of his beautiful face, drinking his tears because it hurt so much to see him cry. My lips were dry and cracked and rough against his skin, but I was kissing him when I had absolutely no right to it, to him, after all I had said and done.

But I couldn't move my lips from his face because they felt so right there, so like they belonged when I never thought I'd feel that way with anyone. I stayed like that, fingers on one cheek, lips on the other, until I felt his head tilt away from me, pulling apart then pushing together as his mouth rested against my neck.

With hesitation, I felt his hands crawl up my back, inch by careful inch until I was grasped between his arms, being clutched at while his face pressed more intently into the space between neck and shoulder, sobbing.

I listened to him cry.

"Stalker," Apollo finally muttered when he was more in control of himself, bringing the image of the reptile-skinned man to my memory, of his obnoxious grin and annoying chirp of a voice. In death, his tail and his claws and his warped body looked the same inside as everyone else did, and he was not so different after all.

"Stalker was my ... lover, Midnighter."

The hold on me tightened further as I stilled his grip, barely breathing and stunned. For all the things I saw that no one else could even guess at, *that* had never entered my line of sight, never even thought about it when now, always in retrospect, it was all I could see.

"But I wanted you," Apollo continued, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces with every word he uttered, and I gave myself to him, let him clutch me to the point I felt pain, let him take my strength as I silently listened to his confession. "All I ever wanted was you."

I swallowed loudly, trying to ignore the burn of his naked body through my clothing, trying to not want him as badly as I so obviously did. This would just fuck things up, make things too complicated between us, but ... goddamn it, this wasn't just lust.

It never was.

"Midnighter?"

I opened my eyes and looked at him, staring into those pale blue eyes and knowing how easily it would be to lose myself in him forever. My breath came in rapid gasps, and I was frozen, unable to move, barely able to think. "Yeah?"

"Do you want me?"

"Hell yeah," I muttered, moving my fingers off his face and sliding them down his neck, watching him arch his throat and shiver open-mouthed. His heart, I could feel it beat furiously inside his chest, nervous.

He was like me for once.

Apollo lowered his head, our eyes greeting as he leaned forward to brush my face with his cheek, just a rub but my body tensed and cried out for him, to touch him more than he was allowing me. His breath, hot and wet against my jaw, touched my skin in the hint of a deeper kiss. I growled, low in my throat, for him, and drank from his mouth when his lips pressed against mine, opening slowly as his tongue crept out with a shy hello.

Outside, the rain plowed down harder, crashing against the roof with hollow, haunted cries, and inside, where it was dry, it grew even darker as the fire dimmed. Colder, it would have been, if not for the hot mouth against mine, the body pressed so tightly between my legs, the heart that pumped burning blood through anxious veins beating against my chest.

He tasted of sugar, of honey and nectar ... and of sunlight, if such a thing could be tasted, but it was light and it was what I needed, parts of him to become parts of me because it was too dark in my world, too utterly without light or hope ... or love.

When his hands dipped under my shirt, I tensed, and he pulled back, questioning without having to speak the question. I nodded and let him strip me of my armour, let him touch the ruined skin even I could barely stand to feel. I looked at him, ashamed of myself, and he ran the pad of his index finger along one of the largest incisions then licked that same path with a scalding tongue.

"You were never ugly to me," he whispered, his eyes still wet, and I nodded, never having the words when he so deserved to hear them. Moving with amazing grace, his pressed his face to my breast, anointing my skin with cleansing tears. "You saved my life. I knew then that you loved me, too."

I wanted to say I would have done it for anybody but that was a lie. I had carried him out of that building on my shoulders, dragging him when I had to, knowing I'd sacrifice myself in an instant if that's what was needed to save his life. I did it only for him and we both knew it.

I lay my neck over the back of his head, holding him in a grip of life and death, grateful just to feel the heat of his blood beneath my arms, but he moved his hands to the clasp of my pants, sliding his fingers under the thick fabric to stroke my hips.

"Will you let me do this?" Apollo muttered, his thumbs poised to open the door that would eventually lead us entirely together, not just as brothers in arms but as lovers, too. I nodded slightly, figuring whatever I didn't know, I'd just make up.

I didn't know a damned thing.

The clang of a buckle and the rasp of a zipper, I hissed in a sharp breath as Apollo slipped his hand between my legs, grasping the hardening flesh inside. I thrust into his grip, not used to this, never able to recall when I'd ever felt anything like it before. Like eating, like shitting, I didn't do sex anymore, didn't need it and hadn't wanted it until now. It was just gone after the surgery, no desire, no erections, no thought to the clump of flesh sitting between my legs. They tried to kill it, to take it from me too, but they couldn't.

I was a man before anything else they wanted me to be.

So I could take immense solace in the fact that my cock was hard and pulsing between Apollo's fingers, that my hips moved to push myself even further into his clenched fist, but the fingers lifted away and left me empty. I opened my eyes only to see him go down on me, to take that incredibly stiff pillar of flesh in his mouth and taste me as I copiously dripped onto his tongue.

His fingers pulled down my black pants, whisking them off so quickly I barely had time to realise they were gone before Apollo spread my legs with his hands, holding my thighs as his tongue swirled around the head of my dick, one, twice, three times before taking me into the glory hold of his mouth, into his throat where it burned the heat was so exquisite.

I tensed when I felt a finger prob me, flashing back to images of men in coats doing the same thing, but this wasn't them, it was Apollo, my light and saviour, the only man I would ever let touch me in places that had already been so defiled.

I brushed a hand through his hair, to assure him, to ask - to beg - him to go on, and I opened myself to him, feeling the heated finger slip in passed the tight ring of muscle. He stayed still until I relaxed further, stopping all motions of his mouth and hand. I just lay there, feeling him on me, wanting him so much I nearly came just thinking about the statues we had become.

Then, sensing I was ready, he began to move again, swallowing me to the root as his finger thrust deep into my body, touching a spot that brought sparks of pure light to my eyes. I groaned and pushed onto him, not thinking, not analysing, just given into the feeling of him and me as one creature.

It was taking everything I had in me to stop from coming right there, from exploding in his mouth, but I lost the battle as he added another finger, rubbing in that very spot I thought could never have felt this fucking good. Fingers pressed to the cold floor and lifting my hips as my feet braced themselves, I came without sound in his mouth.

For a second, it was just me again, but then he was next to me, pressing his body against me to keep me warm. We lay for a long time before I spoke because it was me who needed to say something, me who had to find the words.

"You're good," I mumbled.

"I know," Apollo replied lightly, laughing quietly against my shoulder as his fingers danced upon my chest. His hand rested against the swell of my left pectoral, stopping right above my heart with an obvious comment of symbolism. "I'm sorry I flew off."

"I drove you away. You would have been a fool to stay." I looked at him, wondering who of us was the elder, but it didn't matter, I suppose, I knew all there was to know about him because we both had so very little that formed our souls. "And you came back."

"To you."

"To me."

Apollo shifted just as I did and our hips bumped, grinding together for a few seconds of physical bless. He was hard, hell, so was I, but incredibly patient, as if he felt his needs didn't matter or as if he felt my anxieties mattered more. I wasn't good with words, but I was scared shitless of going any further, and he seemed to understand that, seemed to sense my fears.

I didn't need words with him.

Apollo touched his hand to my face, pressing his finger over my brow then between my eyes to the arch of nose, switching to his thumb to smooth my lower lip. "Odd," he said slowly, "how your face was left untouched save for this scar," he ran his thumb down the centre of my forehead, "right here."

"What?"

Apollo looked at me and seemed to understand. "You've never looked at yourself."

"I just assumed," I replied, "it looked like the rest of me."

"No," Apollo breathed as he kissed my forehead gently, pressing his lips so tight and warm against my skin that I swore it would leave a mark. "No, they left you that much, though I think you see with different eyes than I do."

"I'm ugly."

"You're beautiful."

For an instant, I wanted to hit him when he said that, to beat him until he was as ugly as me, but I wouldn't, couldn't, do that to him. If nothing else, I wasn't an abuser, and fuck, if this wasn't some basis for a relationship, I didn't know what was, so all I could do was stare at him and wallow in the spite that sprouted in my chest.

"Am I beautiful?" He asked suddenly.

"You better fucking believe it!"

"Why? Because of the physical? Is that what you take me for? Just a pretty face on the body of a god? Or is there something more to me than that, something deeper that makes me more than a handsome statue to you?"

I narrowed my glare. "You're twisting my words, Apollo."

"Maybe, but you're twisting mine." Apollo looked at me, harsh eyes that softened after a series of languid blinks, slowly lightening, slowly becoming the opposite of mine, back to where we belonged, him light, me dark. Anything else ruined it. "If you're a monster then I'm one too."

"Then I guess I'm not a monster," I muttered, finding my hand curling around the back of his neck and pulling him so our foreheads touched, the centre of him touching the centre of me. "I should fucking hate you. You're everything I'm not."

"Yet you love me," Apollo whispered with a crooked smile, lifting his eyes so our glances met beneath the veil of our heads. "And I love you in return. Perfect cycle, Midnighter, can't have night without day. Can't have good without evil. Can't have you without me."

Scary realisation that was, finding myself nodding and agreeing with his words. Part of me wanted to see it with the eyes of a coward, that since it looked like we'd be on the run for a damn fucking long time, I might as well use him and let him use me in return. Mutual lust, sex to ease the tension, a fuck now and then to make it all better.

But I didn't need sex. The only thing I needed was the one thing he was giving to me. Brothers in arms, fuck yeah, but a damn lot more than that, too. Night and day existing as one, or whatever the fuck he said, but together and not alone.


End file.
